Tarini Date completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto with a double major in Sociocultural Anthropology and Sociology and a minor in Women and Gender Studies. She then completed an MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford.

She started her master’s program with the aim of studying the rise of Hindu nationalism amongst the young urban elite in India. However, when in Singapore during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic her research interests shifted to migrant domestic workers (MDWs). While on leave from her master’s program she spent a year interning at a shelter for MDWs in Singapore where she worked with various stakeholder such as government officials, lawyers, employment agents, employers, and MDWs to secure favourable outcomes for MDWs. While interning she also worked on several research projects for the NGO. When she returned to her master’s program, she did her research with residents of the shelter exploring their lives at the shelter which earned her a Distinction.

After completing her master’s degree, she returned to Singapore where she continued to volunteer with the NGO, working in several capacities with them including befriending, casework, conflict resolution, assisting in research and helping with shelter management tasks.

Tarini is currently pursuing a PhD in Anthropology at the ANU. Her doctoral research explores how the state, employment agents and employers care for Filipina MDWs in Singapore, and the ways in which such forms of care are inextricably tied to control. Her research also considers how the recent increase in self-care discourses and practices are used by stakeholders to circumvent their duty/responsibility to care for MDWs and push the responsibility of care onto the MDWs.